Tuesday, March 31, 2015

A very demure friend of mine in Ottawa told me she'd just have to phone me back.
"Right now I'm watching my favorite series Schitt's Creek," she said before hanging up.
And then there was the check out girl at Sobeys who said she adjusted her hours "So I can get home, make dinner and watch Schitt's Creek."
In a season where CBC-TV has been pounded by falling revenues from the federal government as well as the future loss of NHL hockey there's been one bright shining ray of hope.
Yes, It's Schitt's Creek.
You'll either love it or loathe it, there are no in between positions with this one.
Look, I go a long way back in the art of TV criticism.
And I know how hard it is to craft a local Canadian situation comedy.
I once sat through the taping of a new CBC sitcom titled Delilah and it was very, very painful let me tell you.
The audience actually trickled out before the taping was over.
CTV tried its darndest with Excuse My French (1974-76) taped in Montreal but the frail little story faltered and quickly.Yes, there was King Of Kensington's success for CBC.
But it was followed by Hangin' In (1981-87) which festered for six seasons despite the inspired presence of Lally Cadeau.
We were always told by CBC types that Canadian comedy could only thrive in sketch form --hence the huge success of RCAF, 4 On The Floor, Kids In The Hall and This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
So the huge success of Schitt's Creek is a sheer delight as far as I'm concerned.
It brought back to Canadian TV those great SCTV players Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara --aided by Eugen's equally gifted son Dan who is co-creator.
The premise is just plain wacky --Levy, O'Hara and their two kids, formerly among the richest people in the land, lose everything and wind up in a seedy hotel in a run down town they just happen to own.
Hilarity ensues to put it mildly.
Dan Levy I first noticed in the hysterically funny MTV shows that followed The Hills where every nuance of greedy twentysomethings was parsed and examined.
He's completely funny here as the befuddled son David and Annie Murphy as the self centered daughter Alexis has gotten better every week.
Ratings have dwindled but that's because CBC lacks a bevy of other hit shows to "hammock" the new show until it gets its bearings.
I don't know how they got Chris Elliott into this as the very dim mayor but he works perfectly. Schitt's Creek is outstanding TV comedy because it creates a parallel universe and within that frame every character works without overacting a bit.
The show can only get better with Season Two
THE FIRST SEASON FINALE OF SCHITT'S CREEK IS ON CBC-TV TUESDAY MARCH 31 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

Friday, March 27, 2015

I'm always telling people about great TV series they never knew existed.
So here I go again.
I've just watched a preview of the first hour of the simply stupendous new British documentary series Walking The Nile.
It debuts Wednesday April 1 on Travel +Escape at 9 p.m. and simply stated is a must see.
This one has everything and then some.
American journalist Matthew Power is caught sitting on a log in the middle of the humid African jungle and two hours later he is dead a victim of intense sub stroke (the temperature hit 48 degrees Fahrenheit).
Several times amiable British host Levison Wood tried CPR but it didn't work and by the time army helicopters arrived Power had died suddenly and tragically.
That's one of the life lessons viewers are taught in this magnificent odyssey which took host Wood and his camera crew eight months and 4,250 miles from starting at a mere stream in Rwanda and following the Nile all its winding way.
There are big ticket items to worry about all the way.
In parts of Tanzania fully a third of the population men and women alive and also children have tested HIV positive.
And there is poverty everywhere. Within days of Wood's travels a civil war broke out and near one town we see a gang pounce on him and demand equipment and clothes so that his life and his guide Boston can be freed.
The series has already premiered on Britain's Channel 4. And inevitably, there's a coffee table book out there, too.
In Part One Wood is seen walking through parts of Tanzania and Uganda.
Tanzania he finds still a police state, suspicious and with the local police convinced the film crew were spies.
In Uguanda he surprisingly finds a more free society --English is the first language and the capital of Kampala seems fairly prosperous.
Of course we're really watching for the animal shots: the menacing hippos are scary until we see one bloated hippo carcass floating in the water --poachers are everywhere.
The images of elephant herds are shot at a distance but a stroll along one sandy beach turns menacing because a mess of crocs suddenly emerge from the shrubbery.
See, the trouble with most TV travelogues is their levity.
Walking The Nile looks at all the problems of an area that is both beautiful and dangerous.
It's an extraordinary TV ournal and former British paratrooper Wood is perfectly cast.
We are living history with him and the mix of jungle and desert remain reminders of the fragility of life.
Here is TV worth watching and talking about.
WALKING THE NILE DEBUTS ON TRAVEL + ESCAPE OPN WEDNESDAY APRIL 1 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

"It's funny, honey, but I've been in this crazy business for 30 years and here I am now in the lead!"
And Alberta Watson let out with a cannonading cackle that hushed all spectators.
There I was in a church basement on Roncesvalles Avenue interviewing Watson, her co-star Peter Outerbridge and producer Bernie Zukderman who were shooting the pilot for a new CBC-TV series called Chasing Cain.
It was the summer of 2002 and the first cut of the TV movie showed a sharpness and story line bound to succeed --except CBC pulled the plug solely for budgetary reasons and Alberta Watson never got her crack at top TV stardom.
I'm thinking of Alberta who has passed aged 60 days of lymphoma --I met her all over the place over the years.
"We go all the way back to In Praise Of Older Women (1969)" I told her that day in 2002.
"Not that I was one of the older women," she laughed.
Indeed, she was the one lover who was a near contemporary of the hero played by Tom Berenger.
Just for the record his older conquests included Karen Black, Susan Strasberg, Helen Shaver and Marilyn Lightstone
But In Praise failed to make Watson hot in her own country and like so many others she drifted to L.A.guesting on such shows as Hill Street Blues, Law & Order, The Equalizer as well as miniseries like Kane And Abel (shot back in T.O.).
She did get co-starring duty in the 1987-88 series Buck James (well cast as Dr. Rebecca Meyer).
One big break came in the 1994 independent movie Spanking The Money as the woman who sleeps with her own son (played by Jeremy Davies).
"It was considered very naught. People were always asking me about it and assuring me they'd only heard about it not actually watched it.
She returned to T.O. in 1997 for the series La Femme Nikita well cast as the spy agency honcho Madeleine.
The sight of Watson all dolled up in a pink Chanel suit and matching high heels proved just how sexy she could be.
And she was back for nine more episodes in the instant TV remake (2011-12) with Madeleine now a powerful U.S. Senator.
Watson also shone as a regular on The Newsroom (2004), Show Me Yours (2004), 24 (2004-05), At The Hotel (2006), Angela's Eyes (2006) and The Border (2008).
But it was the irony of Chasing Cain slipping away that floored her.
First diagnosed with lymphoma in 1998 she asked me to keep it secret or she'd lose out on jobs and I was happy to oblige.
In person she remained drop dead gorgeous, hilarious when discussing the start of the Canadian TV industry or when she instructed the Star photographer during one shoot how to light her eyes.
When he chose another less than flattering shot she phoned me at The Toronto Star and raged "The next time he'll have to shoot me through linoleum!"
Then she cackled her wonderful way and hung up.
I remember her best quote to me: "I'm a working Canadian TV actress and there are few of us around at the best of times."
And already I'm missing her.

For years I've been trying to find someone else who watched the lowly Cable channel Outdoor Life.
I'm still trying.
I rather like the oddball service which has Ghost Hunters as well as various editions of Storage Hunters as its main fare.
But I fear it will be one of the first Canadian cable channels to go as the CRTC orders the "unbundling" of current consumer choices.
It's not as if Canadian TV is overflowing with goodies as far as cable choices are concerned.
Bravo TV got its license as a high end channel for the arts including ballet and opera. That has not happened-- reruns of American series plus some interesting TV series seems to be its main fare.
After all the Arts And Entertainment channel which once had a night every week devoted to various high arts now sports mostly reality series.
Same with The Learning Channel which went lowbrow years ago abandoning its prestige series for bridal shows and the like.
On Canadian TV sports channels are at the top of the profit heap which is why Rogers paid big bucks for the rights to all NHL games in Canada.
Also, home renovation channels seem to be thriving beginning with HGTV as in Home and Garden TV. Pardon me but when was the last time you saw a "gardening" show on that channel.
In Canada the first cable channel to ever fail was the C Channel --the "C" being for culture which most Canadians apparently were not willing to pay extra to get.
Other Canadian cable channels that failed: Fashion TV, Talk TV, Drive-In TV.
When Canadians can pick and chose what they want look for a lot of peripheral cable channels to likewise go black.
The CRTC made a bad decision at the dawn of Canadian cable in allowing certain American cable signals priveleged positions on the dial including A&E and TLC.
Certain "Canadian" Channels have not lived up to the promise of performance including Bravo Canada and BBC Canada which seems to consist of reruns of Top Gear with the insufferable Jeremy Clarkson.
I'd like to see a CBC Rerun Channel with jewels from the vaults --but CBC sources say this would merely show how mediocre the current CBC fare has become.
I was sad to see the plug pulled on Sun TV --it offered another political viewpoint not often heard on the conventional news channels
How about an Arts channel --it could be pay TV --with live performances from Shaw and Stratford.
CRTC isn't dealing with content in its latest loopy decision.
I know I'll miss Pawn Stars and Dog The Bounty Hunter if the number of cable choices continues to wither.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Way, way back in the Sixties when I was a lowly undergrad at the University of Toronto there was something called the Vietnam War raging half a world away.
But the conflict very definitely impinged upon U of T's usually serene campus.
There were angry demonstrations when Dow Chemicals came recruiting prospective graduates.
And mass demonstrations soon became a regular occurrence plus the definite possibility the university might even be shut down or the administrative buildings occupied.
All this turmoil is brilliantly captured in the latest must-see documentary from veteran filmmaker Andy Blicq in the riveting hour long history Vietnam: Canada's Shadow War
You can catch it on CBC-TV's Doc Zone Thursday March 26 at 9 p.m.
"I was amazed it hadn't already been done," Blicq says on the phone. "It had everything. But today there is amazement so many Canadians were caught up in this war in some way or another."
Blicq tells me there's a huge archive of newsreel footage that was just waiting to be explored.
He even shows clips from CBC reporters including a very young Peter Kent who interviewed more than 40 years later can still recall the difficulties in covering the war.
"We thought we were avoiding this war," says Blicq. "But it caught us up in its controversies."
I'm totally amazed --and I thought I knew something about Vietnam --at the number of young Canadian men who volunteered to fight.
"The figure is over 3,000," Blicq reports "although it may be a lot higher. One source says 12,000. Why did they do it? Some were there for the adventure. Others wanted to defeat communism. One boy who died over there was the son of a Canadian general.
"In addition to the inevitable casualties as well as the return of others who were broken in spirit."
Blicq thinks the time is just right to think back. "A re-assessment is underway in the U.S. I think there should be one in Canada, too."
One statistic Blicq discovered truly surprised me --he says of the draft resisters who came to Canada almost half were women of conscience.
He's gotten some great stuff with photographer Laura Jones who left the U.S. with her husband because of her conscience. Her meticulous photographic record of this community is utterly fascinating.
Blicq says CBC's archives are a treasure trove --the news reports have all been preserved. By contrast CTV's Michael Maclear told me a lot of footage shot on videotape had started to wattle and was no longer of broadcast quality.
"We think Canada wasn't involved but it was," Blicq says. Canada shared military information with the U.S. and Canadian factories produced war materials for use in Vietnam including deadly napalm gas.
"Prime minister Pearson clearly wanted to stay outside the expanding war," Blicq says. But in one confrontation at the Texas ranch of President Johnson Pearson was told in no uncertain terms to stop butting in.
I certainly remember when I started covering TV at the Hamilton Spectator in 1970 there were a number of "draft dodgers" on staff and they were intelligent and highly respected reporters.
Most chose to stay in Canada even after a mass presidential pardon and they've succeeded in many different walks of life.
When I tell Blicq I think he's amassed enough material for a dramatic miniseries he says "That's exactly what I was thinking."
There's a longer version I'm suggesting he could sell to the U.S. particularly PBS because this is a true story that skips across the border.
Made by Merit Motion Pictures: Vietnam, Canada's Shadow War is a virtually must-see experience.
VIETNAM: CANADA'S SHADOW WAR PREMIERES ON CBC-TV'S DOC ZONE THURSDAY MARCH 26 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

I'll have you know I staggered out of a sick bed (spring flu) to catch a preview of Sue Rynard's dazzling documentary SongbirdsSOS and I'm glad I did.
In fact I feel a whole lot better for having the mysteries of the declining population of North American songbirds explained so brilliantly for me.
You can catch this must-see hour on CBC-TV's The Nature Of Things Thursday March 19 at 8 p.m.
First of all the photography is splendid (Daniel Grant headed a crew of four) in capturing these splendid birds in dazzling flight often shown in slow motion.
And director Rynard should win every award for her persistence in traveling all over the continent to demonstrate the complex nature of the decline of the song birds which may be irreversible.
Let's start with the human heroes.
There's avian eco-toxicologist Christy Morrissey investigating the buildup of lethal neonicotinoids in the spring water runoff that damages prairie wetlands to the point the birds he is studying seem malnourished.
And there's Dr. Bridget Stutchbury who is equipping northern Purple Martins with micro-chip backpacks revealing their amazing migratory paths to South America and right back to the very nests they occupied last season.
The stats are very scary indeed: since the Sixties Baltimore Orioles are down 42 per cent, Purple Martins down 67 per cent, Canadian warblers down 66 per cent.
Pollution is one vile reason but another might be simply termed "modernity".
In and around the great glass skyscrapers of Toronto are killing fields -- we watch in horror as the nightly culls of dead birds are bagged to be counted up.
About a billion birds are killed this way every year.
Birds evidently can't distinguish between great glass windows and open airspace and that much dazzling light late at night further disorients them.
The images are terrible and ever turning off the lights will not protect all the birds.
In Alberta the whole ecology is under threat from gigantic oil and gas development and warblers need forests with trees at least a century old.
In Saskatchewan ponds and surrounding farms we see delicate ecosystems threatened by new types of pesticides which stay in the water --eventually there will be a great crash predicts one naturalist.
The lessons we learn about these tiny but tough birds are charming --they've survived everything else but are now in danger simply from a modern world which may not care about song birds.
I see from the credits a longer version is planned for PBS's NOVA but CBC-TV got there first.
SONGBIRDSSOS PREMIERES ON CBC-TV's THE NATURE OF THINGS THURSDAY MARCH 19 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

For years now I've been demanding equal treatment for TV zombies.
Various vampire TV series star a lot of male beauties but women simply do not get fair treatment.
And then along comes the new series iZombie starring sometimes beautiful Rose McIver.
You can catch it starting Wednesday on the new video streaming service shomi (a joint venture between Rogers and Shaw).
For more information click to shomi.com for a free subscription period.
It's absolutely no surprise that the creator of this adaptation of the Vertigo comic is Rob Thomas who once served the same purpose on Veronica Mars.
In fact McIver looks so Veronicaesque this one might be retitled "Veronica Mars Becomes A Zombie".
We first meet our heroine "Liv" "when she is relatively normal --that is if being 25, great looking and a rising medical resident can be deemed average.
She has everything going for her including a handsome if slightly boring fiancee (Robert Buckley)) who convinces her to go to a medical students party just to prove she's one of the folks.
Like there's this zombie attack that leaves most of the students dead except for our Liv who springs up and discovers she's been turned into a zombie.
Most of the time she simply staggers around looking out of it but then there's feeding time and nothing but munching on a newly dead human's brain can quench her appetite.
But when she nibbles away she also consumes the memory of the dead person she's been chomping on.
The first episode artfully sets up her predicament.
Like she's new to the zombie game so what better reference is there than the antique horror flick Night Of The Living Dead which she watches over and over.
Her life saving career now gone, she opts for a job in the mortuary and becomes the confidante of bright, young detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) --he doesn't seem to "get" her altered state but how can he remain ignorant for long?
Gag lines resonate such as "You're not dead, you're undead."
Or "Eating brains sucks beyond words." I just bet it does.
A darker story starring David Anders as a sort of mentor zombie is being introduced throughout the first four episodes. That's all I'll say on this matter.
The often wry and satirical plot takes the same tone as the original comic which was written by Chris Roberson and drawn by Michael Allred.
The first person perspective is a real plus and it's definitely interesting we see Liv as a real, caring doctor before she morphs into the zombie girl who by the way still wants to help people.
And she doesn't have time over the long haul to feel sorry for herself.
She begins a very strange collaboration with morgue co-worker Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) that will be developed in future episodes.
I know it sounds strange but iZombie is really a delicate balancing act --some laughs, some chills.
Whole scenes are rather charming, the heroine certainly is different although in some scenes she looks almost pretty but in other situations spots a complexion filled with holes.
Liv simply determines to get on with helping people and she refuses to crumble away.
I rather like that prescription of surviving her state of "undeadliness".
IZOMBIE PREMIERES ON SHOMI ON WEDNESDAY MARCH 18.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Anybody I talk to about the state of Canadian content says the same thing.
Canadian TV seems to be in its death throes.
Over at CBC the budget has been slashed annually and there no longer is any consistent Canadian arts programming left.
CBC which once made its own TV ballets, operas, and music specials has dumped everything to stay on budgetary track.
CBC has no Canadian TV movies anymore and is now planning a significant reduction in documentaries for next season or so I'm told.
Its private competitors CTV, Global and Citytv will only make Canadian drama series they can sell to the U.S. market.
That means a series as fine as Global's Combat Hospital was immediately cancelled after the American broadcaster ABC declined to back a second season.
Citytv had one sole hour of quality drama in Murdoch Mysteries which the network dumped several seasons back because it was too expensive (CBC picked it up).
So I'm dumbfounded at the most recent decision of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission which agrees with me the quality of daytime Canadian TV is lousy.
The CRTCV says it is substantially reducing the numbers of daytime hours each day that a network must devote to Canadian shows --it will be down from 50 per cent to 35 per cent.
Remember this is the very CRTC that in 1985 wiped out its insistence that a certain portion of prime time Canadian content be devoted to scripted series.
In one year the number of scripted Canadian series dropped from a high of 11 to just two.
I'm insistent that quotas of all kinds should be abolished --they merely produce mediocre fare which fewer and fewer Canadians want to watch.
I'm convinced the only regulation the CRTC should insist on is a demand from all private networks that they spend as much on Canadian programming as they spend in L.A. snatching up all the U.S. series.
Last year that figure was almost $700 million --I would be surprised if the private networks spent a third as much on Canadian shows.
CBC is now saying the 55 per cent daytime insistence on Canadian content will be reduced to zero.
And I'm fearlessly predicting that come next September few if any Canadian shows will be left.
Instead a vast wasteland of U.S. imports from soap operas to reality junk will come flooding in.
Canadian TV has always been endangered.
We import all our soap operas, we import each and every low class American talk show, every cheapie reality outing..
Canadian TV may be past saving.
The CRTC tip toed around the idea of a "Netflix tax" --and it's Netflix and other streaming devices which are eating away at the ratings of traditional Canadian TV networks.
CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais is banking on a desire by the networks to go for quality.
In a speech he mentioned all the great Canadian authors Canadian TV could call on for quality.
Excuse me but the first question a Canadian networks asks a producer these days is "Can this be sold to American TV?"
One of CBC's last TV movie efforts was a biopic of Don Cherry --there was one lone foreign sale --to Finnish TV.
Well, The CRTC took the Canadian networks at their words in 1985 and look what happened.
The other day I asked friends at a cocktail party which Canadian TV series they would consider "must see TV".
The only Canadian title I got was Orphan Black and it is made in Toronto but by BBC America.
Canadian TV is terminal, I humbly submit, and CRTC's latest attempt at resuscitation is going to be a bust.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

I think it was last summer that I suddenly realized my insular little world was fast changing.
There I was walking in my neighborhood one afternoon when I met up with an old friend who said she'd just sent her teenaged daughter to a special camp to break her twitter addiction.
Seems the teen was notching 3,000 tweets and twitters a month even as her grades plunged accordingly.
Then I saw a nun at St. Michael's College out on the lawn reading her tablet.
And bookstores I'd been frequenting for decades started disappearing.
If only I had been able to see John Freed's new documentary Deluged By Data at that time I wouldn't have been in such a funk.
You can catch it on CBC-TV's Doc Zone Thursday March 12 at 9 p.m.
Freed's brilliant take on digital modernity is a must-see for all of us who still watch network TV on occasion, purchase real newspapers or even use an old fashioned land line telephoner.
In fact it's quite ironical Deluged By Data is running on Doc Zone because CBC sources keep saying that delightfully old fashioned documentary series may be axed as CBC audiences continue to dwindle.
Freed accomplishes everything stylishly with a lot sarcasm and wit.
And he has definitely it proved to me that as far as The Brave New World of Digital existence goes I'd rather remain a Luddite.
Freed's round up of victims of digitality might be described as cases of too much, too soon.
'He interviews quite brilliant, young people who realized they were suffering from digital overload.
Some even managed to break free but the average digital addict might need some help along the way.
The first images show us what is happening out there: there's a solemn Papal procession featuring the late great Pope John Pasul II and the adoring crowds are content to watch and soak it all in.
Fast cut to today's Pope Francis in the same procession arc and everyone in the crowd seems to be taking selfies or getting the big shots on their cell phones.
We visit with data expert Patty Smith whose job it is to winnow down all those images to the essentials.
One guy has 30,000 images and can never find the ones he truly needs.
Vacationers would come back from a Caribbean idyl with maybe 30 pictures --now they have thousands and they're so busy getting the shots they forgot to stop and and appreciate the scenery.One subject tracks his eczema with a home device.
Futurist Stephane Marceau predicts that clothing of the future will some complete with darta collecting inserts.
A few weeks ago I searched on the web for Angela Lansbury tickets at Toronto's Princess of Wales theater.
I didn't buy tickets at that time but every other newspaper site I now reach flashes Lansbury ticket offers at me.
CBC radio host Nora Young explains how sharing of data on such a wide scale is frankly scary.
Freed even tracks down a former Google executive Daniel Sieberg who was so into living a data rich life that he missed important family events.
He now describes himself as a recovering tech addict and his journey is fascinating.
Freed also visits Camp Grounded where victims of data burnout search for their basic humanity. And he's found twitter addict Lolly who has quit stone cold because she hardly knew any of the people who were constantly tweeting her.
Freed who soars as the Montreal Gazette's humor writer wrote the novel that became the 1981 movie Ticket To Heaven. His last documentary was Life Below Zero (2012).
I like Deluged By Data but since I have never learned to twitter or tweet this is the only way I can alert potential viewers./
DELUGED BY DATA PREMIERES ON CBC-TV'S DOC ZONE THURSDAY MARCH 12 AT 9 P.M.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Two big new items both affecting the future of Canadian TV clashed this week for our attention.
First up the president of Bell Kevin Crull told a TV audience in Ottawa that the current model for traditional broadcasters is "fundamentally broken" and "unsustainable."
And in Toronto the CBC our venerable public broadcaster unveiled a tattered schedule for fall 2015 that is barely a schedule at all.
I'm suggesting both events are closely intertwined and both demonstrate how dangerously close to collapse the whole Canadian broadcasting system has become.
Let's start with Crull's amazing but very true admission.
As reported in The Globe And Mail he's saying CTV is having a fine ratings year in terms of viewers but still projected to lose $40 million.
Like all traditional webs CTV has been losing viewers to specialty channel he says.
But I'm also convinced the real danger comes from Netflix and its imitators.
Crull's solution to me issimplicity itself but I'm not sure it will work.
He wants the CRTC to expel the major U.S. networks which the cable systems still import from such border American cities as Buffalo.
I remember when I first started covering Canadian TV as the TV critic for The Hamilton Spectator in 1970 that cable was then in its infancy.
Many people still had antennae and those antennas were pointed south to Buffalo for the five channels most people watched.
The Canadian networks at that time would release their U.S. acquisitions days before the scheduled American air date.
But gradually they began simulcasting their American product with the U.S. feeds.
That meant they had to run the shows at the very same date and time and the CRTC would allow the cable casters to black out the incoming American signals and substitute the Canadian versions.
I predicted at the time this would ruin Canadian TV.
Because Canadian shows could never compete against the double rating the U.S. shows were getting.
But the Canadian networks loved it because with such huge ratings they could charge premiums for their commercials.
How cable systems will react to dropping their American channels is another matter.
Will subscribers willingly give up something they've enjoyed for over 40 years?
And what should CTV, Global and Citytv promise in return?
I'm hoping they'll agree to up the ante of their Canadian drama series which this season includes hits Motive and Saving Hope.
Look at CBC's fall 2015 schedule which CBC released the other day.
Its one big new drama series Strange Empire got cancelled because CBC can't afford such expensive shows anymore.
The lingering effect of the loss of all that ad revenue from NHL hockey is kicking in big time.
CBC's big "new" show of the 29015 season will be a five episode revival of Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I liked it three years ago but ratings were infinitesimal --if anything it should be on a cable specialty channel.
Chris Haddock who did so well for CBC with Intelligence is back with a new drama series The Romeo Section.
There are a few other new shows including New Address and Kim's Convenience.
And this is big news: the talented Sudz Sutherland and Jennifer Holmes are returning to CBC with the new drama series Shoot The Messenger.
Murdoch, Heartland , Mr. D, Dragon's Den, Rick Mercer and This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Schitt's Creek are back and so is the sturdy new series X Company for a second season.
There doesn't seem to be any money for Canadian TV movies or miniseries which define the country we live in.
I remember an era when CBC made its own operas and director Norman Campbell won Emmys for some.
I remember when the late great Harry Rasky's "Raskymentaries" were shown on TV networks around the world.
Boy did I cause a stink at CBC when I once ventured that the Corp should be making its own Masterpiece Theatre confections.
On Canadian TV most Canadian culture disappeared years ago never to return.
That means virtually no Canadian opera, ballet, even popular music specials.
CBC seems in free fall with revenues projected to be way, way down.
If Crull sincerely wants Canadian TV to be fixed his plan must also include a rebooting of the CBC.

Thursday, March 5, 2015

I can explain why I missed the entire first season of the delightful reality series Cold Water Cowboy.
I was recuperating from triple bypass surgery and my place of residence Toronto's Baycrest Hospital didn't have a modern TV service.
Meaning I couldn't get Discover even if I had wanted to.
So I'm new to the sophomore show which is wild and wacky but also educational in a strange way.
It was created by documentary film makers tyson Hepburn and John Driftmier and is a Canadian retort to such U.S. imports as Duck Dynasty.
Instead of wrestling crocs these intrepid stars of Cold Water Cowboys search the chilly northern seas for crabs and schools of halibut.
There's a lot of fun here but it's also very dangerous.
Co-producer Driftmier died while filming another Discovery reality outing in Kenya titled Dangerous Flights.
Part of the success of this show is the effortless history lessons --the plentiful cod fishery collapsed in 1992 and thousands of Newfoundlands fishermen faced bankruptcy.
Here we find it's one of the most dangerous professions in the world. Several times during the first hour it seems that a fishing boat may capsize in ocean swells or the boat may sink after springing a major leak.
And we come to look up to Captain Richard Gillett who simply won't give up no matter how dangerous it gets out there.
A real delightful touch is the use of subtitles throughout --the fractured English that's spoken is I am told closer to that of Shakespeare's day than contemporary Canadianisms.
And Gillett in the first hour I've seen emerges as a heroic personality --he'll bawl out crew members when needed.
The other profiled captains are Morris Antsey on Sebastian Sails, Conway and Rick Caines on Seadoo, Andre and Michelle Jesso on Wave and Paul Tiller on Atlantic Bandit which he has just renamed contrary to the traditions of the sea.
On one of the boats profiled her the crew have taken onboard a grinning youngster who desperately needs a new start after serving 10 months in the pen.
Look, I'm already aware of such competing series as Deadliest Catch and Wicked Tuna but I submit if we have to watch reality shows let them be Canadian ones.
The stage is very dramatic: it's been the worst winter Newfoundland has endured in 30 years.
There are ice jams everywhere and Captain Gillette has memories of dear friends who perished in other similar times.
The photography is superb. I really felt the guys were being placed in perilous situations.
But they do not grouse about their lot in life --they seem to embrace the dangers.
We see how they act as one to keep their ship from getting stuck in the ice jams --other boats have been scrunched up in similar situations.
"Not a job for slackers," jokes one veteran.
It's also a question of knowing where the lobsters asre going to be congregating --one boat makes the wrong decisions and those traps are almost barren.
"I'm going back to roofing," quips one disillusioned crew member.
And then there's the amazing new monster netting the size of 290 football fields that gets all tangled up and may have to be abandoned at a huge loss.
Of course on all these reality epics the ups and downs have to be somewhat manufactured.
If the crew gave up in the first new episode, well, there'd be no new season.
The collective philosophy is best summed up after one fiasco when the captain shouts :"Let's go fishing men!".
COLD WATER COWBOYS' SECOND SEASON PREMIERES ON DISCOVERY TUESDAY MARCH 10 AT 10 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

I just had to preview the new CBC documentary The Antibiotic Hunters because I'd recently come down with a suspected case of C Difficile after a well meaning ER doctor doused me with competing antibiotics.
But what a relief!
Because I discovered this hour from Vancouver documentary film maker Bruce Mohun is pretty terrific.
I naively thought it would be a bunch of talking heads but the visuals are amazing.
You can catch the premiere on CBC-TV's The Nature Of Things Thursday March 5 at 8 p.m.
"We started by selling the idea to CBC's The Nature Of Things," Mohun explained on the phone to me. "But, yeah, we thought the visuals might be the challenging part."
Instead Mohun's travels all over the map make the hour must see TV.
"We're at the end of the great age of antibiotics," Mohun says. "They have been over prescribed and unlike other drugs they are no longer potent if used over long periods.
"Scientists have warned us that new drug resistant strains of infections may pounce and we would have nothing to counter.
"So there's a desperate race to find new antibiotics and that's what I tried to look at."
Finding new antibiotics out there is a case of venturing into places untouched by human habitation.
In one segment Mohun and crew wiggle into a tiny cave in the B.C. forest where the textured walls may indeed produce suitable material.
"The caves have been there for thousands of years --how they have survived and grown is tremendously important.
"How tough was it to film in a tiny cave? With one hand I'm holding the light to illuminate the scientist, with the other I'm trying to stay upright."
Another site is a remote jungle island off the coast of Panama.
"It used to be a penal colony but most of the island remains dense, unexplored bush."
That's where Mohun meets up with the amiable three-toed sloth who carries unique sources of algae growing on her back --it might be another key to a new antibiotic find.
And there's a visit to an alligator farm in Florida --the blood of alligators holds other keys as does the saliva of immense Komodo dragons..
Mohun ties this all in to the recent work of Canadian scientist and some human interest stories such as the young mom who had to have a fecal transplant to conquer her C Difficile problem.
"The problem is antibiotics are everywhere --in farm animals in Canada although the practice has been banned by European Union countries.
Other recent Mohun documentaries I've admired: The Downside Of High and The Allergy Fix.
Says Mohun "We show some other new alternatives such as the low dosage of silver mixed with the antibiotic vancomycin and what is called 'Phage therapy' used for decades in Eastern Europe where viruses called bacteriophages attack the super bugs.''
The final result is a cutting edge real story that is one of TNOT's best hours of the season so far.
THE ANTIBIOTIC HUNTERS PREMIERES ON CBC-TV'S THE NATURE OF THINGS THURSDAY MARCH 5 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.

About Me

Jim Bawden has been a TV critic for 40 years starting at The Globe And Mail in 1970. In 1971 he became TV critic at The Spectator and in 1980 TV columnist at The Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper, retiring in 2008. He has written widely on movies and TV for TV Guide, Films In Review, Classic Images and Film Fan Monthly.